Consumers have begun to expect such prevalent access to mobile content, products, and services that merchants must keep pace with fast-moving mobile trends. Matt T. Jones explains how you can adapt ways to synchronize your content, rely on the Internet “cloud,” and maintain the consistency of your shopping and checkout experience across multiple mobile devices.

This chapter is from the book

Consumer adoption of popular mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, e-book readers, netbooks, and other portable media, has become so mainstream that many mobile trends now have as much to do with new selling and payment opportunities as with updates to hardware and software technologies.

Consumers have begun to expect such prevalent access to mobile content, products, and services that merchants must keep pace with fast-moving mobile trends. You must adapt ways to synchronize your content, rely on the Internet “cloud,” and maintain the consistency of your shopping and checkout experience across multiple mobile devices.

Adapting to Business in the “Cloud”

Mobile industry analysts speak of the cloud as a single point of access to multiple servers via a digital network, such as the Web, that’s offered through a cloud provider or other commercial organization. Cloud users, including your customers, may more conveniently connect via their netbook, tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device to your information in the cloud. The cloud server provides and manages various apps and data, including product information, presentations, chats, documents, blogs, videos, photos, and more, so customers don’t need to download and install the information on their own devices.

Whether they’re eager to join with customers in the cloud or not, a large number of companies today either don’t have a mobile strategy or are only planning one. Those with a working strategy can improve their approach and move to the next level of mobile business mastery. In each case, merchants will do well to understand and apply the major mobile selling and payment trends.